Donald Rumsfeld – Republican power broker, controversial Defense Ssecretary and architect of the Iraq war – died Tuesday in Washington, D.C., He was 88.  In 1975, Rumsfeld was selected to serve as the 13th defense secretary — the youngest person to hold that position in the country's history, according to the Department of Defense's historical website. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Gerald Ford. After working in the private sector for 23 years, Rumsfeld returned to his formerly held position, assuming the role of the 21st secretary of defense. Former President George W. Bush selected Rumsfeld for his second stint as Pentagon chief in 2001. Rumsfeld vowed to shake up the military bureaucracy, seeking to make it leaner and more agile. The Sept. 11 terror attacks changed everything. Rumsfeld oversaw the Pentagon’s response and its initial attack on al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan. With stunning speed, U.S. commandos and airstrikes toppled the Taliban from power and a new democratically elected government was established. Bush fired Rumsfeld in 2006, with United States mired in grinding insurgencies that killed and maimed thousands of U.S. troops, and thousands more combatants and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. About 2,000 troops remain in Iraq supporting a fragile government fighting Islamic insurgents, and the last U.S. combat troops prepare to leave Afghanistan where the top commander warns of a brewing civil war.